From his chair at a workstation, Mr. Terrific grinned. “Not exactly what I created the T-spheres for,” he admitted, “but it got the job done, right?”
Iris tried to collect her thoughts even as Caitlin dashed to Madame Xanadu’s side to support her. Felicity kicked Owlman’s knife out of range.
“What do we do with this guy?” she asked, gesturing to him.
“Pipeline,” Iris said. “Like I—”
She cut herself off as the room lit up again, this time with a familiar blue light. In an instant, there were Barry and Oliver, along with a man she’d never seen before, but who wore the very familiar and very welcome emblem of the Kryptonian house of El. She was used to seeing it on Supergirl, not whoever this guy was. But that was the least of her concerns right now.
“Is it really you?” Iris rushed to Barry’s side and clutched him before he could vanish again.
“It’s me,” he told her. “I told you I’d come back. I think we were supposed to get here tomorrow, but from the look of things, I guess it’s better that we got here when we did.”
“Oh, I love it when you talk time travel shenanigans,” Iris deadpanned.
They kissed.
“You gonna give me some of that action, Green Arrow?” Felicity asked.
Much to everyone’s surprise—possibly even Oliver’s—he swept her into his arms and planted a serious, deep kiss on her.
“You should travel the Multiverse more often,” Felicity said when she could catch her breath.
Barry made introductions after whisking Owlman down to the Pipeline, where he joined the rest of the Crime Syndicate in a cell. Back in the Cortex, there was a confused babble of overlapping voices and stories for a moment before Superman stepped into the center of the room and, without speaking, commanded everyone’s attention. Then, very calmly, he pointed to each person in turn and requested an update. Soon, everyone knew the status of each crisis.
They were all grim.
“And what’s the deal with these visions of Barry everyone keeps seeing?” Felicity asked. When the collected heroes all groaned, she threw her hands up in the air. “What? Yeah, I know it’s not the end of the universe, but it’s weird and it has me freaked out, OK?”
Mr. Terrific stroked his chin, deep in thought. “It could be some kind of interuniversal quantum residue from Anti-Matter Man’s incursion into a plus-matter universe.”
“I know that was English,” said Green Arrow, “but could you try it in English for fourth graders?”
“He’s saying that Anti-Matter Man’s transit from universe to universe was so violent that images from other universes might be bleeding through into ours,” Barry said. He checked with Curtis, who nodded his assent.
“Yeah,” said Mr. Terrific. “With something that big and that violent ripping open the universe, there’s a good chance we’d see all kinds of temporal refractions and rebounds for a while.”
“Then it wasn’t really you?” Iris asked. “It was a Barry Allen from another Earth?”
“Or a possible future,” Mr. Terrific added. “Or the past.”
“Maybe even the TV world,” Barry speculated, shrugging.
“TV world?” Superman asked.
Barry quickly recapped for the Man of Steel the story of the other version of the Multiverse, the one in which Barry Allen had decided to change history. Now there were two entire realities, one in which Barry had changed history—the transuniversal version, or TV—and one in which he hadn’t . . . their own.
“Only Cisco can communicate with the TV world, thanks to his Vibe powers,” Barry finished. “Without him, there’s no way to be sure if this other Flash that people are seeing is from our Multiverse or somehow crossing over from the other one.”
“In any event,” said Iris, clutching Barry’s hand tightly, “it’s surely the least important of our problems right now.”
Barry nodded. “From what you said, it sounds like Cisco was kidnapped by our foe at the End of Time.” He suddenly cracked a grin. “Good thing we’re headed there anyway.”
“Oh?” Iris asked archly. “Are you planning to run there? Last time you got lucky and the Tornado Twins let you use the Cosmic Treadmill. What’s your plan this time?”
“The Time Bureau,” Barry announced, then, for Superman’s benefit, explained: “That’s a government agency here on Earth 1 that helps police the time stream. They have Time Couriers, which can transport you anywhere in space or time. They were no help in rescuing Cisco or Curtis because we didn’t know where and when to look. But now we have a destination.”
“The end of everything,” Superman said solemnly.
The room went silent. For a moment, there’d been an incipient sense of something like relief, something akin to optimism. The Flash was back, and he’d brought an ally with the powers of a god! Everything would be OK!
But the End of Time . . . as Superman said, it was the end of everything. Who knew what dangers and evils lurked there? And any foe who could turn the Reverse-Flash into a living weapon was a true menace to be reckoned with.
“Iris, Curtis,” Barry said soberly, “I want you two to coordinate with Brainiac 5 and J’Onn J’Onzz on Earth 38. Do whatever you can to start closing these breaches and tracking down the people who’ve fallen through them.”
“What about me?” Felicity asked. “I’m more than just arm candy for the Emerald Archer, you know.”
“You start working remotely with the crew back in Star City,” Oliver suggested. “Give them some tech support in their hunt for Ambush Bug.”
“All due respect, Oliver,” Mr. Terrific interrupted, “but I’m a hometown boy and even I’m wondering if Star City is really a priority. We’re talking about the sanctity and survival of the entire Multiverse here. One city’s safety just doesn’t seem to measure up.”
Before Oliver could respond, Superman spoke: “Green Arrow is right,” he said, his voice soft yet steady. “We don’t just fight the biggest battles or the
